There's a lot of interesting research work and surprisingly few internal barriers for switching between projects and getting internal funding for research. In contrast compared to a commercial company, there's no legacy software to maintain because most work is new development for limited release and proof of concept. Once a research product gets to point where it demonstrates value, it usually transitions into an existing government and/or commercial product and is maintained by an external company. The research culture also does not follow the "publish or perish" mindset of academia. In my 9 year tenure I've grown from senior to lead to principal without a PhD or Masters Degree.

Cons

Some managers lean a little too much the employee to seek out new projects and coordinate their own work/roles on a project. It's not a problem for me but management could do a better job organizing their workforce rather than relying on their workforce to self organize; A little of both is probably best.

Advice to Management

Allowing staff the freedom to pursue different projects and research is great but it can lead to organizational structure that's a bit muddied. As a result the chain of supervisors above you may not have deep expertise in the same area you do -- though this is not global true and different divisions are better than others at organizer their people.